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About Me

I'm Scott Schuler. I'm a husband, a father, an entrepreneur, and the founder of the Man Up Project. I'm here to create a community to build up men into strong role models, respectful husbands, and a place to be unapologetic for being a real man.

We all have certain phrases or things we say on a regular basis. Some may call it a verbal quirk, some a catch phrase, or some a reminder of sorts....

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Good Men or Great Men?!

There. How’s that for a few seconds of awkward silence? Right? It’s been a while since I’ve been on. I actually looked. I was like, holy cow. It’s been August 16th since I had posted anything here. And, for that, I apologize. But, you know how it is. Summer gets busy, right?

What’s up Christian? Good morning, sir. How’re you doing?

So, today, I wanted to talk a little bit … My wife made a post, and it really got me thinking about what she posted, and as men, what are we doing? How are we going through life? Are we being good men? Or, are we being great men? I’m speaking next week to a group of men that Christian’s referring about. And, I’m gonna try and talk about this without giving away everything that I’m kind of planning on talking about there.

But, I think everybody should hear this. I think men, this should be something that we’re thinking about. And, quite honestly, it’s everybody. But, I’m a dude, and I’m talking to dudes. So, that’s how it works. But, I think this is good information for pretty much everybody out there. So, the difference between, as a good man, how you act, how you think. And, what it is as a great man.

I’m gonna talk about three different things. We’re gonna talk about thoughts. We’re gonna talk about how you care. And, we’re gonna talk about how we teach. So, that’s where I think this becomes important. As men, we’re introducing thoughts. We have power to … we have the ability to have influence over people, over our families, over other men, over just anything in general. We have that power. To man up, means to use that power for the betterment of others, not to advance your own agenda but to advance everybody, if you will.

So, that’s kind of how I’m gonna come about this. As always, if you don’t agree, put why you don’t. You know? Put it in the comment section. Hey I don’t agree with you, because of this. I love conversation. I love debate. I love being challenged in new ways of thinking. And that brings up the first point. As men, are we providing, whether it’s our sons … so, I’ll speak as men, sons, our kids, and you as … if you’re a gal watching, apply it how you will. But, it’s easier for me to speak, instead of using okay, men, women, men, women every time I talk. All right. So, I think everybody here knows I’m … and everybody watching probably knows so like they’re not gonna be offended by it.

Anyway. So, good men. Good men give people or their kids or their sons new thoughts. Right? They teach them new things. They teach them different ideas, new concepts. And, it could be … I could teach my kid that this is the carburetor of the motorcycle. I can teach my son, here is how you work on it, which I’ve done. He’s 10 years old, and he can take apart a carburetor. That’s just who we are. Or, I can teach them new ways of thinking. Right? I can teach them how to think differently, how to think outside the box. If they have a problem, instead of here’s a thought, here’s how you fix it, here’s how the answer is, here’s what the answer is, I wanna be able to teach them new and different ways of thinking, challenge them to think differently.

One example, my son Wyatt had a math test, and he came home just upset about how he did on this math test. I’m looking at him, and I was like, dude, you only got three wrong. I know Dad, but I should’ve had them all right. I’m like, okay. Well, I like your drive, but what is it about … let’s look at these questions. Let’s see where you got them wrong. And, I looked at the first question. So, picture this. There’s a picture. Picture this, there’s a picture, right? Word problems. All of our favorites. But, it’s got four rows of chairs with seven chairs in each row. And, you have to show your work, and explain your answer. So, he put seven times four equals 28. Then to prove it, he put seven plus seven equals fourteen. Seven plus seven equals fourteen. And, fourteen plus fourteen equals twenty-eight.

So, I looked at this, and I’m like, okay. Seven times four. I mean, I think … I’m not necessarily smarter than a fifth grader for those of you who remember that show. I don’t remember a lot of that, but at the same point, seven times four is pretty simple. I’m like, yeah. I started second guessing myself. That’s a whole nother topic. But, when you know you’re right and you start second guessing yourself, there’s something wrong. But, anyway, I pull out the calculator, and I’m like okay. Seven times four equals twenty-eight. Yeah. You’re right. I said, what the heck’s going on? I went to the teacher, and I said, why did he get this wrong? This is correct. She said, no. What there is, is there’s four rows of seven chairs. So, it’s supposed to be four times seven equals twenty-eight, not seven times four.

For those of you who know me, I’ve got … one of my things that I have to work on is my short fuse. And, I had every last piece of everything I could grab from my toes to keep from going off. I mean, come on. Now, this is ridiculous. So, I’m okay. There’s gotta be a reason for this stupidity. What is it? Well, this is the way they do the standardized testing. If it’s four rows of seven, it needs to be four times seven equals twenty-eight. And, as politely as I could, I said, that’s a bunch of crap. I said, if that’s what it is, then you better be telling these kids why, and you better be explaining to them that it’s okay. What they did was correct, it’s just not how the test wants it. Right? And, I told her. I said I will … She says, well you know, you have, but.

And I said, there’s not buts about this. I will never penalize my child for thinking differently that what somebody else puts in front of him, especially when he can prove that he’s correct. Or, has a frame of thinking that still gets him to the answer. But, just may not be the way that everybody’s looking for. Right? So, that is the difference between a good man and a great one. A great man is gonna encourage thinking that is not necessarily in line with everybody else but is good thinking. Right? Thinking different than everybody else.

The next one is good men care about their subjects or their subject. So, I care about the man up subject. Obviously. I care about the premise of men owning being men. I care about the premise of men being okay with being men and not apologizing for being a man, not apologizing for whatever manliness is you. Because each of us have our own individual manliness, whatever that looks like. My manliness may be riding my motorcycle and drinking bourbon. Somebody else’s manliness may be they are kicking it and just nailing it as an interior designer. Because that’s their gifting. That’s their manliness. It doesn’t matter what that is or who it is. It’s just how they show up as a man and how they move other people forward.

So, I care about my subject. I care about the subject of men. Great men care about the individuals that they’re talking to more than their subject. That’s where that difference comes in. That’s the difference between a good man and a great man. A great man cares about their subject. They have passion for the subject that they’re speaking about. The great man sees the people that they’re speaking to or interacting with and cares more about them and the situation they’re in whether it has to do with their subject or not. They care more about them and what they’re in than their personal subject that they’re talking about. That’s the difference. That is good men versus great men and caring.

In math, or with the kids in school, the boys in school. I care about them getting good grades. I care about them being good individuals in school. Right? But, I care more about them than I do them meeting some standard. That’s the difference. Good men versus great men in teaching. Here’s a big one. This kind of goes along with the thinking piece. But, at the same point, it is a little bit different. So good men are gonna teach what they know. They’re gonna teach their sons, their daughters, other people what they know. They’re gonna pass on knowledge. They’re gonna pass on those things that are gonna help them improve, be good in life, succeed in life, however you wanna look at it.

Great men do this. They teach people, their sons, how to learn. They teach them how to think, how to reason, how to think differently if you will, like we were talking about with the last one with the new ways of thinking. Great men are gonna teach their sons, their daughters how to troubleshoot. They’re gonna teach them how to adapt to situations. They aren’t gonna solve every problem for them, because us solving their problems for them, whether it’s in business, whether it’s with our kids, whether it’s whatever it is. By solving every problem for someone, we enable them. We take away that chance for them to learn how to learn, for them to learn from what mistakes they made.

Again, if they’re making a mistake, the only time it’s a mistake is if they repeat. Otherwise, it’s just a lesson. And, I lesson is learning. So, with the boys, one of the things that I teach them is if they mow a lawn, if they work on their dirt bikes, they work on whatever, if they come to me and say, what’s wrong? I ask them. I ask them a question. I don’t know. What do you think is wrong? Well, they come up with an answer. Okay, well let’s explore that answer. Okay, now if that’s the case, how do fix it? How do we figure out that that’s the wrong thing? How do we figure out that it’s either there’s a fuel problem or there’s a spark problem or there’s an air problem? So, now that’s the difference between good men, good fathers, great men, and great fathers.

The great men and the great fathers are gonna teach their kids. They’re gonna teach their employees. They’re gonna teach whatever it is, whoever they’re working with, they’re gonna teach them how to learn, how to think, how to figure things out for themselves. Because in the end, that’s gonna create smarter, better, stronger versions of us. Right? So, I just had to come out with that. I can’t remember, I’d love to give credit to the guy that she … some newsletter that he had. So, this isn’t like my original material. But, she brought it up for our business site, and I talked about it a little bit yesterday on our business site. And, I think it’s important for that.

Again, here’s the thing guys. A truth is a truth, and it crosses all boundaries, whether it’s business, whether it’s family, whether it’s faith, whatever that is. When you have a truth, a truth crosses all of that. So, when you have this that you can apply to every area of your life, that becomes something that I pay attention to. I think everybody should. If you can apply this to any area of your life, then you know it’s a truth, and it’s something you need to pay attention to and something you need to work on.

So, that’s all I got for you today, guys. I hope everybody’s doing well. I hope you all have a great rest of the week. We are slowly … well not slowly, quickly winding down on the motorcycle season up here in the north. So, today, it’s time for a little bit of a ride. I hope y’all have a great one. Take care everybody.